“I am in Kuala Lumpur” I was repeating quietly when in the dusk I was incredulously looking out the window at the top of the skyscraper.Colorful neon lights and lamps were mingling with the glow of the sunset and I stood speechless with the nose sticked to the window.

Scatterbrained after nearly 24 hours of travel, sensitive to any new stimulus which bombard my all senses, emotional and excited about everything around me- I was standing and I could not believe it. In my wildest childhood dreams I never thought that I would go alone on a journey to the other end of the world. And here I am, in Kuala Lumpur!

Everything is different here. The air smells different, it is heavy and humid and the heat and the sultry weather are overwhelming.The first breath of the air after leaving the air-conditioned airport makes me dizzy and quickly I begin to understand why my host wants to get to the car as fast as possible – air conditioning! While we are leaving the airport towards the city center, I ask silly questions like a kid would do, and I am impressed by everything I see around. In front of me I can see a metropole – international capital in full sense of that word.

You fill find here people of all races, religions and languages. Multicolored crowd rushes on the sidewalks, walkways and crossings. On the streets, in an extreme heat glide endless string of cars and in between bunch of motorbikes.

Don’t think that you are able to imagine that situation. The driver of the motorbike is sometimes a man, a woman but sometimes also a kid..or even worse… 2 kids – when the first one is too small to simultaneously operate the steering wheel and pedals. On one vehicle whizzes sometimes the entire family of four, of course without helmet or protectors. Just like that, embarking in flip-flops straight from shopping, with loads of bundles, between themselves they seat the kids and forward!

You will eat here to your heart’s content for not even more than 10 ringgits. Strolling around small streets full of interesting stalls, you will be able to try the cuisine of almost every part of the world. The smells are really strong, some awful and other amazing. Everything is mingling, whirling and with every step, you will hit another wave of heat. The streets smell intensive and spark with all colors.

You will drink liters of water to survive this unearthly heat, thank the inventor of the air conditioning and think how not to get cold when leaving air conditioned buildings and at the same time how not to get a sunstroke. Life on the streets begins in the afternoon when the sun is not that strong anymore and the temperatures are slightly lower.

When strolling around barely standing houses, modern skyscrapers, palm trees I am passing by elegant businessmen, grimy workmen, sophisticated white women, Indian women in sari, Arabic women in burkas, teenagers in T-shirts with their favourites bands and tourists with a look of confusion on their faces and that is it – multicolored, multicultural and bustling Kuala Lumpur!